Srinagar, Aug 02: Bringing closure to a 17-year-long legal battle, the Court of City Judge Srinagar, Abdul Bari, has convicted two individuals for defrauding a foreign national of ₹34 lakh in a meticulously planned property scam dating back to 2008.
The convicted individuals — Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo and Nazir Ahmad Guroo, sons of Gulla Guroo and residents of Abi Karpora, Nehru Park, Dalgate, Srinagar — were found guilty of orchestrating a fraudulent property transaction by misleading a foreign woman into believing she could legally own property in Jammu and Kashmir.
The case originates from a complaint lodged by the foreign national, who alleged that she had paid ₹34 lakh to Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo for the purchase of a house and land in the Gulab Bagh area of Srinagar. The transaction was made under the false assurance that she could become a co-owner of the property. However, Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo had purchased the property in his own name, concealing the legal fact that foreign nationals are barred from owning immovable property in the region.
According to the case details, the complainant had arrived in India in the early 1990s and was residing in Goa when she met Mukhtar in 2005. Their relationship gradually evolved into a domestic partnership, similar to that of husband and wife. Exploiting this bond of trust, Mukhtar manipulated her into investing her savings in the property deal.
The Crime Branch of Kashmir registered an FIR on June 26, 2010, and filed a charge sheet on August 24, 2010, establishing that the accused had intentionally defrauded the complainant. The investigation confirmed that the foreign woman was unaware of the legal restriction on property ownership by non-citizens and was misled into believing she was a co-owner of the property.
For a time, she lived with Mukhtar in the house at Gulab Bagh, believing in good faith that the property was jointly owned, only to later discover that she had no legal claim and had been duped.
After years of legal proceedings, the court delivered its verdict, convicting Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo under Section 420 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) for cheating, and sentencing him to two years of simple imprisonment along with a fine of ₹5,000. Nazir Ahmad Guroo, found guilty of abetment under Sections 109 read with 420 RPC, received the same sentence — two years of simple imprisonment and a ₹5,000 fine.
In a sharply worded judgment, the court described the act as a “calculated betrayal of trust,” carried out with the sole intention of defrauding a vulnerable and unsuspecting foreign woman.
The court further directed that in the event of failure to pay the fine, the convicts would undergo an additional six months of simple imprisonment. Both sentences are to run concurrently.
The prosecution in the case was represented by Additional Public Prosecutor Vikas Kumar.
